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Argentina First in Latin America to Block The Pirate Bay

On Monday, the Argentinean National Communications Commission (NCC) ordered internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to block access to The Pirate Bay (TPB) website within five days. The ban does not affect access to similar sites, nor torrent files generally, but only a list of addresses pointing to The Pirate Bay.

The order complied with a preliminary injunction issued by Buenos Aires District Court No. 64 in a case filed by the Argentinean Chamber of Phonographic Producers. CNC told providers to block access to IP addresses and domains associated with the website, such as thepiratebay.org or thepiratebay.se.

Until a court rules on the merits of the case, Argentina joins the long list of countries blocking access to The Pirate Bay, but holds the distinction of being the first one in Latin America. The neighboring country of Paraguay will also be blocked from accessing TPB, even though no court order was issued there, since internet services in the landlocked country are supplied jointly by Argentina and Brazil.

The Pirate Bay is a website similar to a search engine that assembles links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. Founded in Sweden in 2003, it’s the most visited torrent directory on the internet.

TPB is constantly facing legal persecution by copyright advocates, who accuse the website of promoting piracy. A vast amount of links listed in The Pirate Bay belong to files shared without the consent of its copyright owners. However, blocking the site entirely means access to materials that are legally distributed, or free of copyright, is also restricted.